Scientists are making carbon fiber from plants instead of petroleum

Groundbreaking news for carbon fibre manufacturing.

https://www.popsci.com/carbon-fiber-from-plants

Beckham and a team of researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory developed a new process for producing acrylonitrile that makes use of plants, namely the parts people can’t eat, such as corn stalks and wheat straw. Scientists broke these materials down into sugars, which were converted into an acid and combined with an inexpensive catalyst to produce acrlyonitrile. The process generated no excess heat and returned no toxic byproducts.